It’s officially mid-December, and the end of 2017 is rapidly approaching. As we start to wrap-up the year, we wanted to share the most popular blog posts of 2017. This list includes the top 10 blog posts published this year, ordered by the number of views.
Top 10 Posts of 2017:
- Announcing TOTAL Online’s Powerful What-If System
To help advisors explore trade-offs and find solutions with real-time results, we are excited to announce TOTAL Online’s powerful What-If system. Change planning variables and see the impact on the client’s retirement capital projection instantly. Engage clients and drive informed decisions by showing how choices made today and in the future dramatically alter their long-term financial situation with the What-If system.
- Silver + Improvements = Planning in Less Time New improvements make Silver even easier for advisors to develop and deliver big-picture financial planning to clients. The latest improvements resulted from a survey of advisors planning with Silver conducted this spring. Top voted improvements, like adding debt payments to expenses and saving changes automatically in the Online Edition, are included in a new release of Silver.
- Client Access and Report Enhancements in Silver
The Social Security strategies feature explores Social Security claiming strategies available to your clients. The new reports establish strategy claiming actions, evaluate claiming age income vs expenses, and present the potential income per strategy over time including break-even points. The selected strategy is fully integrated into your clients’ retirement projection.
- 10-Year Cash Flow Detail – New Reports in TOTAL
New detailed cash flow reports are now available in TOTAL, allowing advisors to demonstrate year-by-year, line-by-line changes to income and expenses. The reports include a total age span of 10 years, broken into two reports each displaying a five year period. The start age for the detailed cash flow reports defaults to client 1’s retirement age and can be adjusted to start at any age.
- Top 50 Plan Changes to Explore Using TOTAL Online’s What-If
TOTAL Online’s What-If system is off to an impressive start. Advisors are jumping in, leveraging the new system to explore planning options, bring awareness to the significance of changing assumptions, and deliver transparency to the long-term impact of taking action.
- Silver’s Retirement Capital Analysis Spending Needs
The Spending Needs amount on Silver’s Retirement Capital Analysis is straightforward for single clients or when both individuals retire in the same year, but it is not as clear for couples when one individual retires and the second continues to work.
- The Ins and Outs of Stock Options
TOTAL’s in-depth planning provides the ability to enter Incentive Stock Options and Non-Qualified Stock Options, including the grant price, strike price, appreciation rate and dates. The financial planning projections determine the cost and value of exercising options and selling stock and reports the amount and type of income subject to taxation. The tax effects will be estimated automatically. Restricted Stock Options can also be handled in the system by entering an option as an NQSO and setting the strike price as $0.
- Converting a Rental into a Residence in TOTAL
Converting a rental into a primary residence is not a function built into TOTAL, but can be modeled thanks to TOTAL’s flexible plan data. The steps include “selling” the rental at the time of conversion to stop the income, expenses and taxes associated with the rental property, making adjustments to the tax reports to offset any taxable gain from the “sale”, and lastly “purchasing” a residence which offsets the cash flow proceeds from “sale” and adds the residence to the clients net-worth.
- Roth IRA Conversions in TOTAL
Converting an IRA to a Roth IRA is simple, thanks to TOTAL’s highly flexible planning data. Illustrating a conversion of an IRA to a Roth IRA requires scheduling withdrawals from the IRA and additions to the Roth IRA. The steps to show a conversion are the same for the main scenario planning data and TOTAL Online’s What-If.
- Including Debt Payments with Expenses in Silver
Including debt payments with expenses proved to be the top requested improvement in a spring survey of advisors planning with Silver. This improvement, along with additional changes requested by advisors planning with Silver, is available now, making Silver even easier for advisors to develop and deliver big-picture financial planning to clients.
Check out everything new in the software for 2017 (this will list each blog post with a new version tag) to make sure you did not miss any of the latest features.
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